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Would You Want To Know Your Death?

Has anyone seen Bigfish before? It’s a movie. I saw it for the first time yesterday. In the movie the main character, Edward Bloom and his friends are kids and they find out how they are going to die later in life. Once they know, it terrifies his two friends. But Bloom says, “I mean, on one hand, if dying was all you thought about, it could kind of screw you up. But it could kind of help you, couldn’t it? Because you’d know that everything else you can survive.” He goes on taking every opportunity and risk, loves deeply, and leaves a legacy because he knows his future.

“Coincidentally” I am reading through Psalms and today in Psalm 39:4-5 I read David say,

“O Lord, make me know my endand what is the measure of my days;let me know how fleeting I am!Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,and my lifetime is as nothing before you.Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”

My lifetime is as nothing before you? That doesn’t sound delightful at all. It makes me think I’m very insignificant….that we are all very insignificant. If I leave it at that, it should terrify me like it did those boys. But then I ask myself, “Do I know when and how I’m going to die? No. Do I know what happens when I die? Yes. Who I’m with when I die? Yes.”

Knowing this should change everything. So much so that we don’t live safe lives terrified by death, but great lives terrified of not leaving a legacy. Yes, we are nothing before Him, but vice versa, He is everything before us.